"There's your family, right there," he said to himself. "All you gotta do is go get them."

Gauthier and his wife, Janice, traveled to Romania in 1991 to start their family. He said the scene was devastating.

"It was bed after bed after bed of these kids," he said. "They would have their arms wrapped around each other, crying and screaming."

One child caught their eye.

"I just fell in love with him," he said.

A boy they would name John came home with them to Wisconsin. Another would soon follow, another boy from Romania the couple adopted that same summer.

"We always wanted kids," Gauthier said. "It never happened for us, and it was just right there."

Janice Gauthier loved being a mother, but she couldn't do it for long. She died of cancer-related complications just four years after the boys came home. She was just 46.

"She was an amazing woman," John Gauthier said.

John remembers the family grieving together when his father brought him and his brother together and said it was them against the world.

David Gauthier raised his boys -- who were just 9 and 7 at the time -- alone.

The three still remain a team, but that team began to grow in adulthood. It started with a letter John found in middle school.

"It had my name on it," David said. "I showed it to my father, and he said 'You're not ready for that yet.'"

At age 30, he was. When he opened it, he saw the first sentence - written in Romanian.

"My dear son," the letter began. It was from his birth mother, Liliana.

"She hoped I could become the amazing man she wanted me to be," he said. "She didn't want me to feel sad for it, but to be happy and proud."

With the help of social media, John was able to reconnect with his birth mother. They spoke before her death earlier this year.

"I said 'Thank you. Thank you for letting me go,'" he said.

Now John, who started with no family, has one of his own. He says he has the best example of a father that he could ever hope for.

"If it wasn't for my father, I don't know who I would be today," he said. "I have so much respect for him."

David said he raised his boys with the same mission he and his wife had.

"Honest, loving, caring children that would hopefully grow into honest, loving, caring adults and be grateful for what they have," he said. He believes Janice would be pleased.

"I think she'd be pretty proud of them," he said. "I know she would. I know I am."

John said the letter from his birth mother also included the names of her other children. He has now found his brother and sisters through Facebook, and plans to travel to Romania with his father next year to meet them.